Bullets are the Beauty (and I don't know why)
by silmarills
Summary: Heath Ledger!Joker x OC, When sheltered and naive Mia Tate befriends a troubled, volatile boy with hard eyes and a dangerous temper that threatens everyone around her, she doesn't know that the ripples of their bond are felt deep in city's dark, festering underbelly, and will set events in motion that will raze Gotham to the ground. (Rating will go up in later chapters)


_1991, Gotham Middle School_

The boy hadn't looked at me even once during the course of the two hours we'd spent in the stuffy, small classroom, where detention was being held.

The ticking of the clock hanging on the yellowish stained wall was loud in my ears; so loud, in fact, that not even Miss Oberlin's booming snores could drown out the noise.

_Tick tick tick tick._

Miss Oberlin was asleep at the teacher's desk, her breath whistling out of her like a steaming tea kettle, barely contained folds of pink flesh straining against her old-fashioned tweed jacket.

Pushing a strand of brown hair behind my ear, I lightly tapped my dainty Ralph Lauren Mary Janes on the ugly linoleum flooring, which was the color of old gum, and sneaked another glance over my shoulder at the boy sitting a row behind me, by the window.

He was sitting stiffly, his shoulders hunched as if to conserve as much space as possible. He was taller than most boys in my classes.

His shirt—a faded military print tee with holes in it—was several sizes too big, and hung loosely from his lanky frame like a flapping second skin. His jeans, which were obviously meant to be worn by an adult male, were cinched around his thin waist by a leather belt with a broken buckle. His hair was extremely unruly. Dark blond strands flopping into his eyes, and curling over his ears. Didn't his mom take him to the hair dresser some time? I couldn't see his face because it was turned away from me, but I'd caught a glimpse of a split lip and angry, intense eyes before Miss Oberlin had ushered us into the classroom, earlier. She'd also called him _Mr. Napie__r._

I didn't know his first name, so, since I had nothing better to do to pass the time, I'd made kind of a game of it. He definitely didn't look like a Peter or a Larry. Maybe a Michael? No, that didn't fit at all. I would have just turned to him and asked, but I didn't want him to think of me as annoying. Curiosity was my besetting sin, Mommy sometimes said to me, and this boy was...intimidating. Like some feral animal that would bite when poked.

He wasn't a total stranger to me. I had seen him before on the schoolyard, sitting by himself—always by himself. Smoking cigarettes, I added in my mind, not able to suppress a little scandalized, excited shiver. Only grown-ups did _that_! Daddy sometimes smoked on the balcony of our townhouse when he came home from work late at night. But I wasn't allowed to tell Mommy.

I was so lost in my thoughts that I didn't notice right away that the boy had lifted his gaze from the cracked laminated wood surface of the table, and was looking right at me. Dark brown eyes, so hard and cold they almost appeared black, seared into my blue ones with such an intensity that it made me want to scurry around the table to hide behind the piece of furniture like some skittish woodland creature. He'd arched one eyebrow, and it took me moment to realize that he was waiting for an answer.

"What?" I said, and cringed at how stupid I sounded. My heartbeat was climbing into my throat.

"Stop. That." His voice was different than I had imagined. Not as deep or gruff; still very much the voice of a prepubescent boy. A very angry one. I notice his hands were clenched to fists beneath the table.

"Stop...stop what?" I said confusedly, and looked around the room for a hint.

"Your feet. Stop fidgeting. It's driving me _fucking_ insane."

I flinched at his crass words. No one had ever talked to me like that. I blinked, biting my lips, but planted both my feet solidly on the ground. "Oh, sorry," I mumbled, hating how meek I sounded. He'd turned away from me again, his head bowed as he stared at his dirty shoelaces.

I gathered up all my courage, and cleared my throat, angling my body toward him. "So, what did you do to get detention?" I asked conversationally.

When it became clear that he wasn't going to answer, I went on, "This is my first time! Getting detention, I mean. I usually don't get in trouble like that, but, you see, Nancy Plissken was teasing me terribly, and wouldn't let me sit with her at lunch. But she is just jealous, because I'm going to get a puppy for my birthday, and her mom is allergic to dog hair, so she can't get one." A muscle in his jaw twitched and I saw that as a sign that he was listening to me.

"She called me a 'stupid cow', so I pushed her. I didn't mean for her to knock her head on the locker," I hurried to add. "I was very sorry and—"

"I don't care." His mouth was pressed into a thin line. A frown creased his forehead. "Why are you talking to me?"

"Why not?" I shrugged, trying not to show how much his scathing comment had stung. I racked my brain for a topic, trying to fill the tense silence that stretched between us.

"I like your backpack," I said finally. Like everything else about him, the backpack looked slightly shabby, but the Ninja Turtle logo had caught my eyes. "Is Donatello your favorite? Mine is Michelangelo, because he makes me laugh, and he likes pizza. Do you like pizza?"

He shrugged, and I blew out a frustrated breath. Why was he making it so difficult? I was about to turn back to face the front of the classroom, when a low, "I brought a snake to school," reached my ear.

My eyes went wide. "A snake? But they're slimy and gross," I protested, scrunching my nose.

"They're not. They're warm and not slimy at all. They're more clever than most humans."

"But we're not allowed to bring pets to school!"

He shrugged again, and a mean grin made the corners of his mouth twitch. "I trained mine to bite when I say. I put her in Harvey Dent's backpack, and she bit his fat stubby finger. He was crying like a total baby."

My mouth hung open in shock at the sheer maliciousness of his confession. At least that explained why I'd heard ambulance sirens during Math earlier today. Suddenly a terrifying thought came to me, and I glanced down at the backpack as if, any moment, a giant snake would burst from the zipped-up bag and launch itself at me like a jack in the box.

The boy's grin only got wider when he saw me nudging my chair back."She's not in there anymore. That bitch of a principle took her from me when she hauled me to her office. But I'll get her back."

The boy jerked his chair back suddenly, shouldered his backpack, and made his way toward one of the windows.

"What are you doing? You can't leave!" I cried with a panicked look at the sleeping teacher. "Miss Oberlin will be furious with you! And with me too for letting you go!" My voice had climbed up a few octaves. I swallowed heavily as I watched him open the window, and climb onto the ledge.

The room for detention was on the second floor. Falling from that height would probably kill him. He didn't seem too worried about that possibility as he ducked out of the window, and let his long legs dangle over the edge. "Don't be a snitch, Mia Tate," he told me, looking over his shoulder at me. The wind tore at his blond curls and the baggy fabric of his shirt.

"Wait!" I leaped out of my chair, flying toward him to pull him back, but in that moment, he jumped off.

"NO!"

I'd once seen a bird crash against my bedroom window with a sickly splat, before it dropped onto my window sill, its little body twitching as it died.

Nauseous, I waited for the inevitable crunch of breaking bones, the screams of horror from my classmates. But when I stuck my head out of the window, my heart pounding fiercely in my chest, there was no sign of the boy. He'd vanished.

"What is all this noise?"

I whirled around. Miss Oberlin had woken from her nap. Adjusting her glasses, she looked around the otherwise empty classroom, then her dewy little eyes fixed on me. "Miss Tate, where the hell is Jack Napier?"


End file.
